Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

Re:Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged... by mikepurvis on Tuesday April 07, 2026 @03:03PM (#47679848)

I have a Samsung ML-1740 kicking around still that I just can't bear to part with; I've been meaning forever to RasPi-ify it, but it's one of those projects that feels like it's going to end up being a rabbit hole.

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Re:Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged... by HeyMeco on Tuesday April 07, 2026 @05:00PM (#47681315)

ML-1740 is supported by the driver available here: https://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/index.html Works on my arm64 sbc as a cups printer for another samsung printer

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Re:Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged... by ValdikSS on Tuesday April 07, 2026 @07:55PM (#47682863)

It's a Samsung SPL device, it's supported by SpliX: https://github.com/OpenPrinting/splix

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Re:Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged... by mikepurvis on Wednesday April 08, 2026 @12:16AM (#47685158)

Yup, I used splix with it for years on Mac, so I think that will be the way to go.

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Re:Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged... by ValdikSS on Tuesday April 07, 2026 @07:56PM (#47682880)

>but it's one of those projects that feels like it's going to end up being a rabbit hole.

I know your feelings. I've started https://printserver.ink because I wanted to buy a retail print server and could not find any. I was expecting half a year overall work for everything, but fixing all printer-related bugs for 3 years already.

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Re:Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged... by mikepurvis on Wednesday April 08, 2026 @12:20AM (#47685178)

Ah nice. If I supply my own raspi zero 2W, can I buy just a software license from you? Doing the software integration is the part I'm least looking forward to. :(

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Re:Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged... by ValdikSS on Wednesday April 08, 2026 @08:48AM (#47689474)

Unfortunately the firmware supports only Orange Pi Zero3. It's a hardware+software solution, because to make reliable print server, you have to control both and fix SoC/board specific bugs.

For example, USB 1.1 OHCI has too high latency to work with my old printer, and needs a kernel patch: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-usb/3fe845b9-1328-4b40-8b02-61...

Greg does not accept my patch and does not reply to me, presumably because I'm Russian and he doesn't want legal consequences.

Raspberry Pi unfortunately have quite list of USB hub bugs and Wi-Fi module bugs (according to their GitHub and reports all over the Internet), and I'm not familiar with it and don't know how to fix. That's why I don't make generic firmware or container images, and stick only to my board which I know from start to end.

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